An engine which performs sequential injection, that is to say, an engine in which the injection period of fuel into each cylinder of an engine is controlled depending on the operational timing of each cylinder is known in the art. An activation control device which initially sequentially injects fuel from the time the engine is activated is disclosed in JP-A-7-83093.
In this invention, the terminal crank angle of the engine is stored based on a standard crank angle signal of the engine (for example a standard signal of each 90.degree. sector for a 4 cylinder engine). Then on the next occasion the engine is activated, the first cylinder into which fuel is injected is decided on the basis of the stored value of the crank angle and sequential injection is performed.
However when the engine is stopped, it sometimes rotates at one point in the inverse direction before stopping. However in the above activation control device, when the engine rotates at one point in the inverse direction before stopping, the actual crank angle terminal position differs from the crank angle position as stored. Thus the problem has arisen that when the first cylinder into which fuel is injected when the engine is reactivated is decided on the basis of that stored value, if the engine has rotated at one point in the inverse direction before stopping, fuel injection will not be performed on the correct cylinder and activation can not be performed smoothly.